The cartoon addition is great. And i like the idea of more articles per day.
Have to agree with some above that it'd be good to easily browse the last couple of weeks or so of articles, or more specifically the still 'live' ones.
A poll section would also be good as Shonga suggests, although i imagine that might require a bit of back end effort.

Looks fine.

I've probably mentioned it before, but one thing that I note on this site (generally, not re frontpage) is that there is no threading. I'm figuring that this might become necessary.

Threading would allow people to go off on a tangent and yet remain hidden for those concerned with the original topic. On the other hand, in a web environment, you'd need to make it extra simple for people to post at the correct level. Perhaps by extending the current friendly icons.

I just noticed "iParliament", which I don't recall seeing before.

It's a nice inclusion although I don't know how often I'll have time to read it.

I found it a pity that articles are only 'alive' for a relativly short time.
Some are worthy [and some comments too]of longer consideration.
This new format seems to make an article's life even shorter.
I couldn't see much wrong with what you had.

Looks great but perhaps we could allow some quarantine space for those that only visit earth briefly and drop their stellar insights into some of the forums :)
It's all good...

At first glance, would agree with many posters that it would be good to have the old all-topics last-few-weeks column readily available - I tend to flick down the list to see if comments have been added to topics of particular interest since I last logged on, with the new layout this means opening several separate topic areas. Some merit in the new "fresher" look, but we're here for the articles and the exchange of views and information, no easier and in some ways harder with the new layout.